


The People She Loved

by HelgaStillwell



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Missing Scene, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:20:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29061978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelgaStillwell/pseuds/HelgaStillwell
Summary: Nicholas Scratch had been homeless for the last three days and it had been three whole days since he last saw his girlfriend.ORNick reflects on his relationship with Sabrina while staying at Dorian's following his expulsion in S2
Relationships: Nicholas Scratch/Sabrina Spellman
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	The People She Loved

Nicholas Scratch had been homeless for the last three days and it had been three whole days since he last saw his girlfriend. Him and Sabrina had been separated while they awaited their disciplinary sentences after their disaster of an attempt at stopping Zelda's wedding. One of the Judas boys had delivered the verdict of Nick's expulsion and escorted him to his room to gather his belongings. Although he'd been disqualified from competing for top boy, Father Blackwood had allowed him to stay in the dormitory, since Ambrose lived off campus. Nick wondered how he'd fallen so quickly from his pedestal within the church as he packed with shaking hands.

As if voicing the tiny, evil thought in the most shameful part of his mind, the Judas boy asked in an amused voice, "Gotta say, I'm surprised Scratch. Was some half-mortal bitch really worth getting kicked out?" 

In the blink of an eye, Nick went from his spot on the floor to being nose to nose with the him. "Call my girlfriend a bitch again and see what happens. I'm already expelled. What's there to stop me from gutting you right now?" He smirked as he watched the boy pale and purse his lips tightly together.

The boy's Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed and said quietly, "Hurry up and pack." Nick wasn't sure if he was up for a fight despite the anger blazing in his chest. Maybe pulverizing one of Blackwood's boys would make have made him feel a bit better but mostly Nick was just in a state of shocked disbelief as he left what was no longer his room, trunk in hand. 

He laughed bitterly to himself on the bar stool at Dorian's Gray Room as he recalled wondering if Sabrina would ask him to stay at the mortuary while he had walked down the steps of the Academy. Three days ago, he'd still had hope that he could find a home in her.

The late winter air was chilled against his cheeks as he stepped onto the wrong side of the train tracks. Sabrina hurried towards him, a beam of white against the dark woods behind her. He was briefly warmed by the press of her lips against his skin as she wrapped her arms around his neck, quickly telling him how Ambrose was being thrown in the witch's cell and her Aunt Zelda had still gotten married. Getting expelled had been for absolutely nothing, but Nick stayed quiet about it, as she told him her plans to see her aunt off before leaving. 

She'd looked at him with a small frown as she traced along his jaw and played with a wisp of hair by his ear. Nick shut his eyes and leaned into her touch with a tired sigh, but just when he thought the question was coming, she asked instead, "Where will you go?"

Nick's vision had fogged like the night air, making the light of the streetlamp grow and stretch in tall stabbing white lines around her. Of course, she hadn't asked if he wanted to stay with her. She was preoccupied with taking care of her family, and right now they were in trouble. He hoped she hadn't noticed the way he balked, blinking away his disappointment before answering with a sad attempt at a half-smile, "Dorian's. I could use a drink after the day I've had." 

Her frown had only deepened as she nodded and said, "Stay safe. I'll catch up with you later then, okay?" She had tilted her head up to kiss him, but Nick didn't think he could handle the feel of her red lips against his with the sinking feeling in his stomach. Instead, he quickly kissed the air near the top of her head, whispered goodnight, and spirited away before he could do something stupid.

It had been three days since then of being homeless, expelled, and mind-numbingly drunk. Nick had spent most of the first day soberly tending the bar and doing chores for Dorian to keep himself busy and useful, all the while hoping that Sabrina would show, but she never did. As it got later and later, Nick grew increasingly anxious. On a whim, he picked up the old fashioned rotary phone behind the bar and dialed the mortuary before he could change his mind. He nervously rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet as the phone rang. A cheery voice answered, "Spellman sister's mortuary." Nick immediately slammed the receiver back down and poured himself a stiff drink instead, downing it in one go. He hadn't seen a second of sobriety since. 

"Your platinum rebel has yet to show. She usually loves showing up where she doesn't belong," Dorian commented. 

"Ambrose is locked up and her aunt Zelda is now Lady Blackwood. She's got her hands full," Nick said trying to reason out her absence.

"Is her boyfriend not homeless? She hasn't even checked in on you, Nicky, dear," Dorian said. Nick simply shrugged and took a long gulp of his drink, draining half the glass. He'd been hoping Dorian wouldn't bring her up that night, but it would have been unlikely. Though Nick normally didn't mind the way Dorian baited him into a conversation, or more often gossip, the matter was rather sensitive. He didn't think Sabrina would want him talking about it, but with Nick's inhibitions lowered by the liquor, coupled with Dorian's habit of purposefully instigating drama for his own amusement, it was only a matter of time until something was prodded that was better left untouched. "I warned you not to get wrapped up in all that love nonsense. It only makes fools and weaklings out of the best of warlocks," Dorian remarked.

"Do you take me for a fool, Gray? A weakling?" Nick asked, his agitation growing nearer to anger. 

"Of course not, you're just young and lovesick is all. It's love requited that's destroys truly great men." 

Nick flinched and took a long drink, finishing off his glass so he wouldn't have to look at Dorian. It was one thing to know in his bitter heart that Sabrina didn't love him back, but it was another thing entirely to hear it said out loud. Was it that obvious? "To unrequited love," Nick said gruffly, refilling his glass.

It had been stupid and naive of him to think that she could ever love him. He had said it first on Lupercalia and had accidentally let it slip out a couple of other times after that, like his feelings were too big to possibly be contained inside himself. She would always get a pleased look on her face and a glint in her eyes before she'd kiss the breath right out of him. It hadn't bothered him that she hadn't said it back yet. He knew she didn't trust him entirely, and why should she have? Nicholas Scratch was not a particularly trustworthy person, but he hoped that if he was loyal and reliable enough, it wouldn't matter. Nick didn't think he'd ever wanted anything as badly as he wanted her love. He thought he might earn it eventually, up until about three days ago.

"You two seemed to be doing well a few weeks ago, around Lupercalia. Did something happen?" Dorian asked innocently, but Nick didn't answer. "Did something not happen?"

"I don't really want to talk about it," he stated simply, watching the condensation roll down his glass like tears.

"Of course a baptized Catholic would cross her legs," Dorian cackled, curling his lips up in disgusted amusement.

"Watch it! That's still my girlfriend you're talking about... and it wasn't like that," Nick mumbled into his glass, wanting badly to stand up for Sabrina but not exactly knowing how to without divulging too much information. Nick's closet was so stuffed with skeletons, he feared that if he tried to pull a single bone, he would be crushed in the avalanche of secrecy he'd created.

"Then what was it like?" 

"I said I don't want to talk about it," Nick repeated slowly.

Dorian hummed and rubbed his chin for a moment, leaning against the bar top. He looked to Nick's already empty glass and began pouring him another. "She probably thinks I'm mad at her anyway," Nick mumbled glumly. 

"Are you?" Dorian asked. 

"No," he answered a bit too quickly, but Dorian raised his brows at him. "I'm not," Nick said irately. 

"If you say so," he replied.

"I'm mad but I'm not mad at her."

"Maybe you should be," Dorian shrugged. "After all, it was her plan that got you expelled, but I suppose you took the brunt of the fall." 

A deep scowl creased between Nick's brows as he said, "It's not like she made me do it, and she got expelled too, same as me."

"Is it the same? She has a whole other school, other friends, another home, meanwhile you're here, sleeping in the back of my bar," Dorian shrugged with suggestively raised brows before walking away to serve another patron.

By the time he returned, Nick had only slipped further into his surly self-pitying mood as he leaned his jaw heavily on his fist. "I guess it is different for her," he muttered.

"Oh Nicky, she always had one foot out the door."

"What do you mean?" he said, sitting up in his seat.

"She was only at the Academy on a court order. It seems to me she's been waiting on her chance to return to her mortals... all of her mortals." Dorian said nonchalantly before he continued to voice Nick's worst fears right in front of his eyes with a small smirk, "Why else would Lupercalia not have gone as planned?"

Nick quickly stood, feeling as if his skin was on fire. "You don't know what the heaven you're talking about," he hissed, his chest heaving with anger. "And it wasn't like that either," he added, before turning to leave.

"Oh, come on now, it was all in jest. Where are you going?"

Nick sighed loudly and snapped, "To take a piss, Dorian. Sweet Satan, can I just do that without you interrogating me?"

"And they say I'm dramatic," Dorian quipped, rolling his eyes.

In the bathroom, Nick splashed cold water on his face and steadied the slow spin of the room with his grip on the sink. He wanted to be angry with Dorian, for the things he said, but he wasn't. If anything, the feeling that welled up in his chest was closer to shame at the fact that Dorian's gross speculation had already faintly crossed Nick's mind. He was always able to quickly dismiss it, reminding himself that him and Sabrina hadn't slept together because of Lupercalia. It wasn't because of the mortal. It couldn't have been. 

It seemed to Nick like Sabrina and the farm boy had hardly touched anyway, so logically, he knew that her physical affections weren't an accurate measure of her feelings. He also knew that he wanted Sabrina's love far more than he wanted her naked, so it really shouldn't have mattered. Yet as much as he tried, he couldn't completely rid himself of the troublesome fear that she didn't really want him, because what other way had anyone else ever shown him any interest? 

He meant it when he'd told her that he didn't care if they participated in Lupercalia, that all he wanted to do was hold her hand, because even just that had his heart ready to burst. It didn't matter to him that they had only really kissed. Nothing could compare to the way his stomach fluttered and his breath caught in his throat when she looked up at him with that fucking smile. 

She asked him one other time, besides the second night of Lupercalia, if he minded that they hadn't done "certain things" together. Nick easily answered no, he didn't mind. He didn't mind the way his clothes became too hot and too tight when they were pressed together, kissing in her bedroom. He didn't mind when she'd breathlessly break away from his lips and lean her forehead against his with a shaky, "Can we slow down?" He didn't even mind teleporting home alone after their dates, still uncomfortably heated, to he replay every gasp and sigh that fell from her lips until his body tensed all at once. Then he'd lay there thinking of her in a lovely dream like state until that one infuriating and unimaginably heartbreaking thought always found it's way into his head. "It wasn't you she wanted."

That was the one thing that actually bothered Nick about not having sex with Sabrina, the nagging worry that she was waiting for someone else. Aside from waiting until his sixteenth birthday, the night of his dark baptism, Nick had never waited for anyone before. More often than not, he was ripping off someone's clothes before he even knew their name, but not when it came to her. He would have waited for her as long as she wanted, only Nick didn't feel very wanted as he laid his burning forehead against the cool tile of the bathroom wall. He couldn't help but think that if she was given the choice, she would have chosen the mortal. Maybe now that she was expelled, she'd get that chance. Maybe that's where she was now.

Nick tried to shake his harsh and unfair theorizing. He knew it wasn't right and it certainly had no basis in fact, but with racing rumors and racing thoughts, he wanted to turn to the one person that made everything around him stand still. If she was there maybe he could believe that everything would work itself out, but it had been three whole days, and he was still alone. 

Before Sabrina, Nick had never considered himself a jealous person, and after seeing how it blackened Amalia's heart, he never wanted to be one. He was sure that he'd never actually felt the emotion until he met her, especially considering that he'd never been much of a monogamist. Jealousy faintly found it's way into his heart, like a bothersome itch when she would talk about the mortal, but it wasn't until Nick met him that he found himself absolutely seething with envy. It was the only time he could bring himself to say his name: Harvey. It tasted bitter, like ash on his tongue. Even looking at him made resentment prickle in his chest. Nick didn't understand at the time what could possibly make Sabrina risk everything, all for one measly mortal. He understood now why she nearly destroyed the world just so that the gangly halfwit would stop hurting. For Nick, she hadn't even called. 

He found it hard to believe that he'd considered himself lucky when the Dark Lord had first come to him and commanded him to get close to Sabrina. While he'd heard of witch's dark devotions ranging from mildly inconvenient to murderous, he hadn't known of one to be pleasant. It was an honor to be tasked by Satan himself and while Nick had been ready and willing to commit unholy acts for glory and power, he was instead handed a journal and told to get to know the pretty new girl with the beautiful voice in his choir class. He'd thought, or more accurately, foolishly hoped, that his role in Sabrina's life was without ulterior motive. He hoped that perhaps Satan planned for them to be together, the way he had blessed Edward and Diana Spellman's union, but the Dark Lord was more interested in manipulation than he was matchmaking.

Nick's parents would have been so proud to have learned that he was personally tasked by the Dark Lord at such a young age. They were prideful people from old and prestigious witch families. He was sure they would have boasted about it the way they did when he'd shown an aptitude for magic at an unusually early age. "Our clever boy," they'd called him. It was one of the very few memories he had of them. He hated to think how disappointed they would have been to find out he'd thrown it all away for something as pathetic as a half-mortal girl who had already given her heart away to someone else. 

It had become very clear to Nick that the order he received could only have one ending and it involved both his and Sabrina's hearts in pieces. He'd tried to change their fate, after they'd kissed in the play, when he realized that the warm swoop in his chest might just be what people meant when they said that love felt like falling. It was exciting as it was terrifying, but despite all the fear, he'd never felt braver than he did by her side. That was when he decided that he couldn't betray her anymore, but the Dark Lord always got what he wanted, and Nick payed for his disobedience with Amalia's life. Love had cost him his only remaining family, the favor of his god, and his home. If only Sabrina knew that he'd risked everything and lost everything, all for her. Either way she'd probably hate him for lying. 

Drunk, mourning, and miserable, Nick couldn't help but hear Amalia's voice echo in his head, whimpering out one of the last things she said to him as he bound her in cold steel. "She doesn't care. Not like I do. I'm the only one that'll ever love you." He hadn't seen it then, but she was right. Not even Sabrina, the one witch that could love like a mortal, could love a selfish liar like him. If the events leading up to his expulsion proved anything to him about Sabrina, it was that she would truly do anything, even the impossible, for the people she loved... she just didn't love Nick.

**Author's Note:**

> I had this note in another work but it's my head canon that Lucifer released Amalia as punishment for Nick trying to disobey him. idk just the way Nick is asking Sabrina about her dark devotions after the play and she admits that she didn't actually go through with it. I just imagine that she inspires him and he tried, only to lose the only family he had left. leave me alone I have a lot of feelings about Nick.


End file.
